I have to say, y’all have really surprised and delighted me with the depth of your questions about the practice of spiritual direction. While I by no means expected anything shallow or silly, I have been impressed by questions that made me, as a seasoned director, stop, think and wonder, Yes, why is that? I appreciate that not just because it means you’re engaging and asking questions that matter to you, but also because it opens my eyes to see the practice of spiritual direction from a fresh perspective.
So, on to today’s question from Joel Anderson:
Are there any key strategies or practices that form a part of a healthy director-directee relationship?
I think that I can begin to answer this question by starting with the building blocks to any healthy relationship. While there are things that are specific to the direction relationship (and I’ll get to those in another post), the place to start is with answering the question, Are there any key strategies or practices that form a part of a healthy _______________ relationship? You can fill in that blank with almost anything, from marriage to friendship to employer-employee relationships and everything in between.
Respect
Respect is a fundamental building block of any relationship. Respect doesn’t mean that you are always on the same page, but it does mean that you always honor the other person and their choices. It is important both that you feel respected and that you respect the other person in the relationship. In spiritual direction, this means that you are willing and able to honor your director’s time, space, suggestions and that you come to your times together in a way that honors the fact that he has been praying for you and holding the time intentionally well before you got there. It also means that you can expect your director to respect your time, space, suggestions and the sacrifice of your own time to be there by being intentional, listening well and not imposing, teaching, speaking over you.
Open, Honest Communication
Any relationship will become twisted and dysfunctional if it is not undergirded by open, honest communicaiton. This doesn’t mean that you have to spill your guts instantly, but it does mean that over time you choose to express what is going on with you to the best of your ability. If you’re tired when you walk into your direction appointment, a healthy director-directee relationship means that you’re able to express your fatigue without your director causing you to feel guilty or ashamed. Open, honest communication creates a space where you can feel heard, safe and accepted. This involves listening without interrupting, asking clarifying questions when things are unclear, and seeking to understand before seeking to be understood.
Trust
“We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy” – Walter Anderson
I find trust to be one of the most difficult and and yet most foundational aspects of any healthy relationship. Trusting another doesn’t mean believing that they will never hurt or fail you. Instead, it means believing that the other person doesn’t want to hurt or fail you—that they want to best for you, and that they genuinely care for you. Trusting someone or something means that you have confidence in them coupled with a willingness to rely on them. In a spiritual direction relationship, trust means having confidence that your director deeply wants the best for you in all things, and desires more and more of God for you. Trusting your director means relying on her to draw you deeper into the presence of God, or to help you in discerning God’s movements in your life.
Boundaries
Appropriate boundaries are important to any relationship. Respecting and maintaining those boundaries allows us to feel safe with one another and to know that the inner sanctuaries of our hearts won’t be imposed upon or violated.
Nonetheless, I find that most people don’t know what healthy boundaries are—in almost any relationship. Because “boundaries” has become a psychological buzz-word, many people use it as a way of trying to manipulate others to do what they want. This is a misuse of the term.
Healthy boundaries in a spiritual direction relationship mean a few things:
1. You value your own time, and your spiritual director’s time.
This means that if your director suggests a time to meet, and you have 6 different appointments that day, you say ‘no’, instead of trying to squeeze the appointment in. It also means that you turn off your phone during spiritual direction appointments (and you expect your director to do the same.)
2. Your director shares his policies with you, and you understand and respect them.
A spiritual director that you meet with should have a series of policies that they have developed around confidentiality, lateness, cancellation of appointments, and communication outside of the direction time. These policies will be unique to each director, but a clear communication of these policies is vital. It’s also important that you don’t simply skim through those policies without clearly understanding and respecting them.
As an example, I have a policy that I can’t guarantee that I will respond to phone messages or emails regarding your spiritual life outside of the direction appointment. While I do my best to respond where and when appropriate, I reserve the right to respond instead during our regularly scheduled time. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you, am not praying for you, or don’t understand that you may be in crisis or struggling with an important issue. What it does mean is that I truly do believe that God is good and that He can and will meet you in between the times that we are together. I have this policy so that I can honor each of the directees that I journey with, and love them well, as well as loving my own family and guarding my own time when we’re not together.
Kindness
I think that kindness is one of the most underrated, yet most important, fruits of the Spirit. In any relationship, is it more important to you to be kind than having your own way, being in control, or being right? Do you want to be heard more than you want to be kind?
Kindness is a close kin to love. Scripture talks of God’s loving-kindness or hesed. In a healthy director-directee relationship, it is important that you feel that you’re being treated kindly—and that you are treating your director kindly. Do you feel like love and kindness are the driving forces of your relationship?
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What about you? Do you think I’ve missed any key elements of a healthy relationship?
Next Up: Practices and perspectives that are specific to a healthy spiritual direction relationship.